From The Inside
by PineappleGrenade
Summary: -Post TDK- With Joker in Arkham Asylum and Batman on the run, the world as they know it is falling apart. But when they start to experience each other's thoughts they are forced to re-evaluate everything they've ever known.
1. Chapter 1

_I'm stuck here on the inside, looking out_

_That's no big disgrace_

_Where's my makeup, where's my face?_

_On the inside_

Time can seem like an indomitable thing to a dog with no cars to chase.

Of course, there's the smell of petrol in the air and an open road stretching on and on forever, but there are no cars. There's nothing to ignite that little spark of excitement that gets you running after the mysterious prize. Rules and boundaries serve as roadblocks that _could_ be scaled, if only the horizon could be seen over the other side. Arkham Asylum seems to have no horizons. It seems to have nothing to worth chasing after.

The Asylum is lonely place for someone even the Crazies find insane. But you didn't become a criminal to make _friends_ now, did you?

It's not like the hard, glaring looks of fellow inmates mean anything. They don't know what's going on, they all have their mad little plans and agendas to follow. They wouldn't know true freedom even if someone came along and just razed these walls and iron bars to the ground. Let them shy away and mutter and turn their backs in the mess hall at lunch time. Let them smile in threatening tones and flex their coiled fists. A solitary existence has never hurt anyone; it has only driven them insane.

Soon enough another car will come along. You can hear it, can't you? Throbbing just out of sight, something to be sensed but not seen. It sounds very much like a Batmobile…

* * *

A/N: The lyrics at the beginning are from Alice Cooper's song 'From The Inside'.

I'm not sure how I feel about this fic, since it's my first 'serious' one, so I guess we'll just have to see how it goes. :)


	2. Chapter 2

Inmate 7501: Joker. Real name: Unknown.

Even though his asylum-issue jumpsuit is brand new, it still manages to look old and dusty when worn by him; even though his face has long been cleared of the white makeup and black-bludgeoned eyes, he still looks like a corpse. Patients and guards alike become nervous in his presence, like untrained colts.

The guards worry about his influence on the other inmates, because he knows how to make things out of the building blocks of disordered minds. They'd keep him in solitary confinement if the human rights legislature would let them get away with it. As it is, the cells on either side of his are left empty. When he enjoys the few hours of daytime leisure available to inmates in the common room, a guard is always posted to watch him closely, to monitor any conversation he might engage in, but they needn't take so many precautions. Nobody wants to talk to a man who walks with Death as his companion. What do they think we are, crazy?

* * *

Joker was sitting very quiet and very still on the edge of his bunk when the noise reached him.

"Waugh! Get your filthy hands off of me, you inbred lout. This is an absolute outrage, my lawyers shall be hearing about this and then you'll all be joining the unemployment line."

Nothing much ever happened in this dreary place. Gripping the edge of his bunk a little tighter in his hands, Joker tilted his head to watch out of the bars that formed his private cell's door. Long shadows, three of them, fell across the concrete floor of the corridor, coming closer with every footstep. Two pairs of booted feet on either side of a smaller pair of asylum-issue shoes (no laces) came into view.

"Speak to your lawyers all you want, the Judge still ruled you insane. You know the rules."

The shoes and shadows revealed themselves to be three people, walking abreast down the corridor. Quick eyes skimmed over the grey-shirted guards, they weren't important, and settled on the newest edition to the menagerie. He was a short man, so short in fact – the Joker noticed – that with a guard securely holding an elbow on either side, his feet were having difficulty remaining on the ground. When his feet did manage to touch the floor, he walked with an awkward waddle that couldn't have been helped by his rotund girth. There was something so ludicrous about this little man, issuing threats and commands with the haughty sneer fixed beneath his long beaky nose, that Joker had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing aloud.

"I am _not_ insane."

The guards shared an amused smile over the top of the short man's head. Joker saw with a small flash of excitement that they'd come to a stop at the cell beside his. At last, he was going to have a neighbour. One guard, whose name badge read Derek, leaned forwards and opened the empty cell's door, whilst the other rolled his eyes with a laugh and said "Tell me one I _don't _know, pal."

Automatically, the Joker opened his mouth to speak, but just as quickly closed it again.

Bolts clanged, keys rattled, and the newcomer was locked up safe and sound. The unnamed guard, perhaps as bored as everyone else in that broken down madhouse, was smirking and carrying on the argument with the new inmate, but Derek had felt penetrating eyes boring into the back of his skull and had turned to confront them.

Derek, sandy-haired and sleepy-eyed, found himself looking directly into the muddy eyes of the Joker. An involuntary shiver traversed his spine and he had to clench his jaw to keep it from reaching his teeth. Why did he have to just sit there like that? Why did he keep so still, those stupid scars giving him a permanently mocking grin? He gave Derek the creeps. The conversation of his fellow guard melted into silence as he found himself teetering on the brink of that empty, unwavering gaze. A small bead of sweat tracked a line down his temple.

"What? What are you looking at?" He barked, suddenly overwhelmed with feelings of anger and hatred for the staring man in the cell, 7501 embroidered on the chest of his jumpsuit.

Joker's eyes widened, as if in surprise at the vehemence of the question. With exaggerated movement that made Derek want to scream, the madman looked from left to right, then he pointed at himself in mock astonishment. _Pardon, Officer? You couldn't possibly mean little ol' me, could you?_

"Derek? You okay, man?"

Laboured breaths forced their way through Derek's nostrils in staccato bursts, flaring them outwards. He shook himself and mastered his anger, his fear, with a supreme effort of will. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay. Just this _freak_ keeps staring at me."

Unnamed grinned. "Not scared of clowns, are you?"

"Of course not," Derek laughed uneasily. He glanced down at his watch. "It's almost time for lunch. We all done here?"

In reply, the other guard reached back and tugged perfunctorily on the new inmate's locked cell door. It rattled irritably. "All done."

"Do you think it'll be alright… you know, leaving" Derek inclined his head towards the newcomer, "next to…?" Head movements were made towards the Joker. That was about as discreet as Arkham guards got.

"Oh, sure. Cobblepot's not going to take any crap. Are you, Cobbles?"

There was a metallic slam and suddenly the short man's disproportionate nose was sticking through the cell door's bars, hands that looked cloven wrapped around them. He was snarling. Joker sat up straighter and watched with interest as the two guards took a step back, both removing potentially lethal riot-control sticks from their belts.

"You watch it," the one they had called Cobblepot growled. "As soon as my lawyers get in touch with me I'll be out of here and I'll be seeing _you_ in court. I'm going to sue you for everything you and Arkham have got. Just you wait, by this time next week I'll be free and you'll be in debtor's prison."

This threat seemed to do nothing more than amuse the guards. Wiping tears of mirth from their eyes, they turned to leave. As Derek passed Joker's cell, he took revenge on his fear by viciously striking the bars with his riot stick, making them sing out. Joker, who had been staring out of the grated window at his small patch of sky, seemed to be startled by the noise for he jumped a little, tongue creeping out to seek the comforting ridges of scar tissue at the corners of his mouth. But he kept his gaze on the sky.

More frightened laughter sounded at his expense, footsteps ringing down the enclosed space of the corridor, growing fainter and fainter, the distant banging of doors, and then all was silence.

Minutes passed. The air tasted of abandonment and neglect.

Moving with incredible swiftness, Joker was across his cell and pressed up against the bars that marked out his confinement in seconds. Left side pressed against the wall that separated him from the newcomer, he angled himself so that he could look through the bars, across into the adjoining cell. Luck would have it that Cobblepot was sitting on the edge of his bunk in plain view, muttering fiercely to himself whilst his feet dangled in thin air. Grinning, licking his lips in excitement, Joker curled his left arm out around the bars, reaching across to bang on the part of the partitioning wall that faced the corridor. His palm made a dull slapping sound against the concrete. It also got the other man's attention.

The short man's head came up sharply, interrupted mid-tirade. His beady eyes widened in alarm when he saw the unhealthy, scarred face of his neighbour looking in at him like some interesting, exotic fish in a tank.

"Waugh-waugh!" He exclaimed in his richly honking voice, the sound reminiscent of some kind of bird Joker couldn't quite place. The corner of his mouth, which had been starting to curl into a disdainful sneer, dropped in recognition. "_You! _What do _you_ want?"

"I just –" The words were interrupted by a quiet grunt as Joker forced his body closer to the bars, as if he would slide through them as neatly as Houdini. His fingertips curled around the wall's corner, practically entering the other man's cell. "I just want a little chat."

"I won't be 'chatting' with anyone except my lawyers."

The Joker smiled and laughed a quiet, humourless laugh. "Heh. I think you misunderstand me, Mister Cobblepot. That is your name, isn't it? You see, what I said was that I want to have a _little chat_." He sharply over-enunciated the 't' sounds, somehow turning them into a threat. Madness lurked on a short leash behind his patient smile.

Cobblepot, otherwise known as Penguin, glanced nervously from side to side as if searching out some kind of panic button that if pressed would send Security rushing to his aid. He knew who was addressing him of course – the terrorist that just a couple of months ago had threatened to bring Gotham to its knees, the man who was responsible for taking out Harvey Dent and sending Batman, the thorn in the side of crime, running scared. Cobblepot knew all this from the newspapers and certain first-hand sources, he knew that the underground world all owed this criminal clown something, yet none, least of all Penguin himself, wanted anything to do with the man.

"Of course. What did you have in mind?"

"Who brought you in?" Sick excitement shone in the criminal's eyes. "Was it the Batman?"

This question elicited a loud, derisive laugh from the other man. "Batman?" the newcomer scoffed. "That scaredy Bat? He won't show his face in Gotham, let alone go after gentlemen such as you and I. The authorities would tear him apart as soon as one pointy ear came into view, and there's no telling _what_ the good civilians would do. He's a marked man. No, the police brought me in, the bumbling buffoons."

"What?" Joker roared in a deep-throated growl completely unlike his normal speaking voice. He flung himself so hard against his cell bars that it seemed inevitable his ribs would shatter from the force. His groping hand came fully around the wall's corner, fingernails scraping and breaking on the concrete. "A marked man? What's he done?"

Alarmed by the outburst, Cobblepot stood up and glared defensively at the raving inmate. "Where've you been, incarcerated under a rock? The authorities have named Batman responsible for the death of Harvey Dent. He's been on the run for months."

Just as quickly as the Joker's rage had arrived, it evaporated and was replaced by a new emotional extreme. Overtaken by a fit of hysterical giggling, he staggered backwards into his cell and collapsed onto the bunk, his whole body shaking with mirth. The unhealthy laughter echoed around the walls, feeding off of itself and seeming to stretch on forever right down into the bowels of the earth. Grimacing, Cobblepot put his hands over his ears.

Eventually the laughter died away and there was blessed silence once again. Joker broke it. "Who laid the blame on old Batsy?"

"Gordon."

The name was repeated and followed up with more laughter, though mercifully briefer than the previous outburst. Penguin could hear the other man muttering "Introduce a little anarchy…" then making the noise of an explosion like a child does when purposefully steering a toy car into a wall in mimicry of the adult world of destruction. Although a wall separated them, Penguin could clearly envisage Joker sat hunched over on the edge of his bunk, a wild grin stretching his scarred one wide as he flung open tightly balled fists in imitation of something exploding in accompaniment to the noise. He found himself feeling very thankful for that wall.


	3. Chapter 3

"You want to know how I got these scars?"

Doctor Cavendish methodically smoothed out a crease in his exquisitely pressed trousers; his eyes never dropping from the feverish stare that met them. "Yes, tell me about your scars."

A professional to the very marrow of his bones, he never even flinched when Joker exploded from the psychiatrist's couch he had been reclining on, head pillowed on folded arms. With a loping, eager gait often seen on hungry scavengers in the wild, far removed from the world of this cream-and-beige air-conditioned room, he crossed the space to the desk Doctor Cavendish sat behind.

"I used to have an older brother," thoughtfully wetting his lips, enjoying his role, the criminal perched himself on the edge of the desk. He was met by a cold look that only became colder when he cupped the psychiatrist's cheek in a restraining hand. There was no fear in that stare, but there would be soon enough. There had to be.

With his free hand he picked up an ornately handled letter opener with a sharp blade at its end that meant more business than show, from where it was led across a pile of expensive stationary. "We were always playing practical jokes on each other," he continued conversationally, tilting his head as he almost tenderly inserted the blade of the letter opener into the corner of Cavendish's mouth.

The psychiatrist's expression never changed. Moving very calmly, he reached out across the surface of the desk and lightly rested his fingertips on the button that would call in Security when pressed. But he didn't press it.

This calm, quiet reaction unnerved the Joker, because it took away all of his enjoyment. With a little growl of annoyance surfacing from the back of his throat, he gave the letter opener a vicious jerk, enough to open up a small gash on the edge of the doctor's lips. When he spoke again, his voice had risen slightly in pitch and his tongue passed compulsively across his own scars between words.

"You know, rubber spiders in the bed, black chalk on the binocular eyepieces. He was a real _joker_ my brother was. But then, then he started to take things too far." Joker's face leant in close to his victim's, violating boundaries. "His jokes got _violent_. One night, I came home from school and he tells me to go out into the yard and find our dog. I loved that dog. When I found her she was dead, killed by my brother and left for me to find. You see," he broke off with a feverish giggle, "no one had told me that my brother was _crazy_. All the doctors said he was fine. So I went back in, crying about my poor dog, and my brother looks at me and he says…"

Revving up for his punchline, the criminal grinned widely and leaned in so close to his captive audience that their foreheads nearly touched. Cavendish remained impassive, his mouth slack around the threatening blade, even when Joker pressed on it harder, peeling the doctor's upper lip up in a one-sided snarl. "He says '_why so serious_? It's just a little practical joke. Why so serious?' Then he took a knife a came towards me. 'Let me help you see the _funny_ side' he says. And then…"

Cavendish forcefully swallowed a cry of pain as the thin blade whipped out from his mouth, scoring a stinging line in the place where his lips met. Bored with his victim's unresponsiveness, the Joker had withdrawn the weapon and now sat back, significantly tracing the lines of his scars with its pointed edge.

The psychiatrist withdrew his hand from the alarm and sat back a little in his chair, once again in complete control. "That's not how it happened, is it?"

"No."

"How did it happen?" Cavendish allowed himself an indulgent smile.

Grudgingly admitting defeat for the time being, Joker sloped off the desk and back to the couch. There he sat, turning the purloined letter opener over in his hands and frankly meeting the scrutiny of the other man. "I don't know, I can't remember."

Ink scrawled hurriedly across paper as the psychiatrist took down notes. "All right, that's enough for today I think. We've started to make some real progress."

With the asylum part of Arkham over and done with, it was time to take the criminal element back into concern. Two guards were summoned and perfunctorily patted Joker down before preparing to take him back to his cell. They came across a blood-flecked letter opener stuffed into a pocket, which the criminal looked at with an 'it was worth a try' shrug as it was returned to Cavendish's desk.

All the way back to his cell, Joker seethed inwardly over the placidity of the psychiatrist, his smugness in the face of what was designed to terrify. Here was a mind to break, an idol to tear down, here was a new car to chase. He was going to catch this one and he'd even know what to do with it once he had it at his mercy – he would tear it to pieces. If he could make the Batman fall from grace into exile, then a bit-player like Cavendish would be no problem.

Passing Cobblepot's enclosure, he aimed a leer through the bars at the squat man and revelled in the look of sour fear that it produced on his face. The jailbird was still squawking threats about his lawyers, but seeing as he was still here it didn't look as if any of them were prepared to rush to his defence.


	4. Chapter 4

_The smell of decay and rotting carcasses is almost too much to bear, but I must endure it. I _will_ endure it. There's nothing else I can do._

_Let them hunt me, set the dogs on me, persecute me. I can't be what Gotham wants, so I shall be what it needs, which is something to focus their hate and pain on. I hear the city, its streets slick with the blood of the innocent, crying out for someone to heal its wounds. To heal herself, Gotham needs strength and I will give her that strength even if I have to die to do so._

_Day after day, night after night I am hunted like an animal. _

_The steady patter of rain around me distorts much of the sound coming from my surroundings, but the bay of police dogs are distinct enough. Despite the complications of the rain, I am thankful for it. It will wash away my scent, make it difficult to track. If they get too close, the stench from the trash cans I'm crouched between will mask my presence effectively. Tonight will not be the night they catch me._

_Two long months of hiding and running, eight weeks of holding onto who I am in a desperate underground world of torture and death. Bruce Wayne is safe, sunning himself on a months-long cruise that it may become necessary to capsize. A tragic loss, but nothing compared to that of the loss of Harvey Dent. I mustn't think about him, it will jeopardize my concentration and I might make a fatal mistake._

_Last night I paid a rare visit to Commissioner Gordon, something that must now more than ever be done in secret, far away from GCPD headquarters. His family have recovered from their traumatic experience of abduction and threatened murder at the hands of Two-Face, or at least, they've recovered as much as they'll ever be able to. A new D.A has been elected, someone who promises to play by the rules and not go for big 'theatrics', but she'll never replace Harvey. He's Gotham's true hero and every D.A. will be judged by his face. Something of me that Gotham will never be allowed to see._

_Gordon told me what I had already suspected, that all the gangs are back out on the streets. The Falcones. The Maronis. He says that the police are dealing with it, but what with hunting me and coping with Gotham's own unique brand of criminals, I fear that they've got too much to deal with. I help as best I can from the shadows, but it's difficult._

_He wants me to leave Gotham, to just get out and disappear. He even offered to arrange the necessary means for me to do so. But I can't leave, not yet. For right or for wrong, my city still needs me and I have work to do here. Perhaps in another couple of months I will be gone and everything will be different, but at the moment the present is too dark to reveal the future. I can only continue to survive day by day and just hope that I'm doing the right thing._

_The barking of dogs and the shouting of men draws closer, I must continue to run._

* * *

In the pre-dawn dark of his cell, Joker opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling, dark remnants of the dream he had awoken from lingering on in his head and making him smile. His tongue passed across his lips, where he imagined he could still taste the bitter contaminated rainwater as it fell from the heavens. The frantic barking of excited dogs on the trail of prey still rang in his ears. A meaty, rotten smell hung heavily in his nostrils. His whole body quivered with the sensations of his dream.

Humming very quietly to himself, pumped with adrenaline, he reached beneath his pillow and withdrew the sharp letter opener that Cavendish believed had been returned safely to his desk. He handled it confidently in the dark, turning it over in his hands, running the soft pad of his thumb over the sharpened edge whilst his scars smiled blissfully at nothing.

After a while sleep reclaimed him and by the time he was woken once again, this time by the harsh ringing of an alarm that warned the inmates that they had ten minutes to be up and dressed before being escorted to the mess hall for breakfast, the dream was all but forgotten. A few tattered images and the smell of decay still lingered, but they were soon lost in the whirling chaos that was the rest of the Joker's thoughts.

Once dressed, he went to the corner of his cell and leant out of the bars as far as he could, enabling him to bang cheerfully on the stretch of wall between him and Cobblepot.

"Wakey wakey, Pengy!" he called out, but the usual irritated reply of 'Waugh!' never came. Irritated, he shifted his position and peered through into the adjoining cell. The view informed him that the squat villain's bunk was empty, the sheets smooth and unruffled.

"Cobblepot?"

Footsteps announced that the guards were on their way to escort him to breakfast. Slowly, he withdrew his arm back into his cell and assumed a statuesque pose at the door, waiting with unnerving stillness for the guards to come into view. He allowed his arms to hang like a lifeless automaton, his head slightly bowed with empty, shadow-rimmed eyes staring straight ahead at everything and nothing. It always gave the men a disconcerted shock, not matter how many times it happened, to come across the criminal like that in the morning. It gave them the chilling, but of course irrational (they told themselves), feeling that he'd been like that all night, not sleeping or even moving an eyelid to blink.

Scowling, put out as usual for being startled even though he had known it was coming, the guard on duty unlocked Joker's cell and gestured warily for him to come out. That morning, it suited the scarred inmate just fine to smile sweetly and do as he was told. He even offered his arm chivalrously to the guard – Oliver his name badge read – which darkened the man's grim expression further. He took hold of Joker's elbow a little more roughly than usual, keeping his free hand resting on the handle of his riot stick.

Boredly, Joker let his muddy gaze rest condescendingly on the cautionary hand, before looking up at Oliver and giving a little start as if he had only just noticed that the man was alone. "Doesn't Pengy get any breakfast this morning? What, did you run out of fish?" He grinned a little and reached out to pat Oliver on familiarly on the forearm, as if they were just two friends exchanging banter over a comfortable round of drinks.

Oliver, biting down on his Botticelli lower lip, was barely able to suppress the compulsion to flinch away from the psychopath's touch. He could smell the other man, a cloying sickly-sweet smell of wilted flowers that seemed to emanate from him, as if were you to cut him open you would find a dying garden in place of the usual glistening red array of human organs.

"Oswald Cobblepot is no longer in the asylum," he answered stiffly, making sure to keep his gaze directed over Joker's shoulder so that there would be no risk of eye contact between them. He couldn't let his fear be exposed.

This news was slightly disappointing to Joker. Having only just gained some interest in this miserable place, it had been taken away from him. The old bird's lawyers must have come through for him after all, and he hadn't even had the common decency to wait long enough to say farewell to good neighbour, let alone leave a 'get out of jail free' card for him. But no matter, there were more interesting ways to pass the time, such as the gradual deconstruction of Doctor Cavendish...


	5. Chapter 5

The opportunity to begin work on Cavendish came sooner than expected.

Sitting as apart from the other inmates as space and table arrangements in the mess hall would allow, Joker hunched over the bowl of unappetizing grey slop that served as breakfast. As he mechanically dipped the spoon and raised it to his mouth, dipped and rose, he became aware of noises behind him. A few seconds later, a heavy hand fell on his shoulder. He ignored it and carried on eating; dip and rise, dip and rise.

"You have an appointment with Doctor Cavendish."

The spoon paused midway between bowl and mouth, shedding watery grey droplets back down into the bowl. "I'm eating," Joker informed the person behind him in a civil voice that barely managed to conceal the unspoken threat that lurked behind the statement.

He began to raise the spoon again but halted when the thick fingers on his shoulder tightened, digging into the joints between his bones. One corner of his mouth drawing back and revealing his teeth in a grimacing snarl, he glanced back just enough to be able to recognise the hand as Derek's. His own hand, curled around the utensil, tightened so much that his knuckles turned as white as the greasepaint he used to cover his face in.

"He wishes to see you _now_."

Anger coursing through him, Joker slammed the still-dripping spoon down into the table's surface so hard that it stuck, the handle quivering slightly from the impact. The noise rang out across the room, silencing the low hum of chatter and scraping of cutlery. An uncomfortable quiet, like the calm before a storm, descended.

Joker's voice filled the void. "Can't a man at least eat his breakfast in peace?" His breathing came in fast, heavy snorts that he struggled to regulate, his chest tight as it was with rage. "Isn't it enough that I can't even take a _shower_ without someone watching me. Now I can't even eat without being disturbed?"

His contorted face suddenly relaxed, his voice becoming low and soothing as easily as an actor changing his costume. "Never mind, it's not your fault. You just follow your orders, right? In fact, just to show that there are no hard feelings between us," he widened his permanent grin, "how about a magic trick?" Turning on the bench to face the man stood behind him, he gestured to the spoon embedded vertically in the table. "I can make this spoon disappear."

Derek's fist moved so fast that the Joker didn't even know what was happening until he felt it collide painfully with his face. Falling back, a burning numbness spreading across his struck cheek, Joker burst into wild laughter because he could be content in the thrilling knowledge that he alone had pushed someone past their limits. He was still laughing when a furious Derek grabbed him by the faded green hair and dragged him to his feet. Watching someone slowly crack and sink into madness never failed to amuse Joker, and he could see the telltale stress lines on Derek's face.

No amount of pain or discomfort could stop him on his zealous quest to prove the world as twisted as he knew it was, and in that was he was very much like the Dark Knight.

A few minutes later, sound had returned to the mess hall as the inmates continued with their breakfast as if nothing had happened and the Joker was being deposited roughly in Cavendish's office.

"I hope we didn't disturb your breakfast," the psychiatrist smiled with transparent insincerity once the office door was closed.

Joker eyed the thin scab that had formed in the corner of the psychiatrist's lips with a similar openness as he settled himself on the low-slung couch meant for patients. "I didn't want it anyway," he replied loftily, leaning back and crossing his ankles. He said nothing of what had occurred between him and Derek, preferring to keep that information to himself for now in the hope that it might work better to his advantage at a later date.

Turning back a page in the notebook on the desk before him, Cavendish seemed to consult something written in a previous session. "How did you sleep last night? Did you have any dreams?"

There was a hungry urgency to the question that Joker had never heard in Cavendish's voice before. Immediately upon detecting it he decided that he didn't care for it, not one little bit. Drawing out the expectant silence that hung in the air, the criminal stretched leisurely and passed his tongue out across his lips. He could have sworn the impassive Cavendish fidgeted a little in impatience and this made him smile.

"Your daughter Odette, she's a beautiful child. I wish I could have dreams about _her_." He nodded towards the small framed Cavendish family portrait. He'd gotten the name of the blonde-haired six year old from another inmate whose name he couldn't recall for a bribe that he couldn't remember. Licking his lips again, he watched the psychiatrist closely for his reaction to that special, secret name.

The desired reaction was not forthcoming. Giving no sign that anything the Joker had said was amiss, he face a serene mask, Cavendish said "But what _did_ you dream about?"

Absently smoothing down his hair, a man with all the time in the world at his disposal, Joker fixed the other man with a bored look. "You're the psychiatrist, why don't _you_ tell _me_. That is what you psychiatrists do, isn't it?" He sighed as if thoroughly fed up with the whole thing.

A small pause followed and then Cavendish cleared his throat and rustled his notes. "I think you've been dreaming of persecution."

Joker, who had been laying back across the couch with his eyes closed, now opened one eye a crack and glanced at the other man. The word 'persecution' had sparked something in the deep recesses of his mind. He repeated it thoughtfully, sounding out the syllables with slow precision. Cavendish leant forwards in his chair.

"Persecution… yes, I dreamt that someone was chasing me" Eyes screwed tightly shut, the criminal made a show of massaging his temples with his fingertips. "Only, I wasn't sure if I really _was_ me…" He could sense the shift in the air as the psychiatrist leant forwards even further, the electric tingle of anticipation emanating from beneath his skin. Joker's mind raced through countless implications of this, considering and discarding theories even as he groped for the right words to bring this new excitement of the psychiatrist's to fever pitch so that he could tear it down.

"You see, I didn't know what it was I could have done, but they were chasing me all the same and they knew where to find me, no matter where I ran. Then they were closing in on me, with a… a… knife" he felt a twinge of disappointment reach him from across the room and squeezed his eyes shut tighter, "No, a gun." That was better. "I turned around to look at my pursuers and saw… a cute little girl with blonde bunches and a front tooth missing from her smile." Unable to keep the grin from stretching his own face, he sat up and opened his eyes.

"Then I realised, _I_ wasn't the one being pursued at all, all that time it had been me chasing _her_. Imagine that. And do you know what I did when I caught little Odette Cavendish?"

He raised a mocking eyebrow when the psychiatrist stood up abruptly, clenched fists on the surface of his desk. Cavendish's expression was truly a beautiful thing to behold, it spanned the whole wonderful spectrum of human emotions, all bundled up together in one face: rage, disappointment, wounded pride, disgust. It almost made Joker wish he had a camera so that he could record this precious moment. The moment he began to triumph over sanity.

"Get out." Cavendish struggled to keep the shake out of his voice. "Just get out, this session is over."

All things considered, it had been the most productive morning for Joker since entering the asylum's doors. In fact, he would even go as far as to say that he was starting to like it here.


	6. Chapter 6

It's so easy to get over-excited, too caught up in the action to even realise what is going on.

It was so hard to concentrate in the silence of Solitary. Lying on the floor of the padded cell, Joker found himself at the mercy of his hyperactive, hyper-speed brain. Not that he minded all that much. With no discernible sound except for his own quiet breathing, there was nothing to direct and stabilise the pinwheeling madness of his thoughts. All he had to do was sit back and enjoy the show.

Bank heists, clown masks, sagging mattresses, speeding cars flashed in quick succession behind his closed eyelids, overlaying countless methodological plans for perfect murders and bank robberies, every last detail planned out within seconds. Creeping in behind this general background of thought was the memory of how he'd ended up here in Solitary.

It had happened a day or so earlier, after he'd woken up from another strange but exhilarating dream. His head was heavy with the smoke from imported cigars, sinister talk in lowered voices, the taste of strong liquor and shady pieces falling into place. His body sang with an adrenaline high, making sounds and colours too bright. In a state such as that, he was a bomb just waiting to be detonated.

Once again, reliving it in crystal-clear clarity in his head, Joker sprawled across a corner of the couch in the common room, one foot twitching with excess energy. Someone had left the small television on and the news was just about visible through a haze of static and poor reception. The Maronis had announced out-and-out warfare, both legal and illegal, on the police department for the way they had been treated in prison. A raid on one of the gangster's safe houses had overturned large shipments of weapons and evidence of assassination plans centring on prolific law-enforcers, but three policemen had lost their lives in the gun fight that had broken out when the gangsters came across the raid in progress. There were whispers that the Batman had been spotted on the scene and the fugitive had been linked with several Maroni trafficking operations. He was truly an enemy of the state now.

Enthralled by the news, Joker broke into a gleeful fit of laughter. It looked like things on the outside were getting along just fine without his guiding influence. Gotham would be in a glorious mess by the time he managed to get back out on her streets. It was at the height of his mirth that the imbecile Ventriloquist and his rotten dummy Scarface decided to try and pick a fight with him.

"Gutton your lip, clown" a speech impedimented voice growled by Joker's ear.

His laughter dwindling to deep-throated chuckles and then finally silence, the criminal turned his head to consult the cracked puppet, its face up in his. Just beyond he could see the nervous, sweaty countenance of the Ventriloquist looking the other way and pushing his glasses up his nose as if he had nothing to do with the dummy sitting on the end of his arm.

The guard who was meant to be monitoring Joker's interactions was too wrapped up in trying to catch the eye of the pretty new secretary to notice anything. By the time he realised what was going on in the room behind him, the worst of it was already over.

Inmates who had been in the room at the time (and some who hadn't) claimed that Joker had suddenly gone ballistic and attacked Ventriloquist, screaming and snarling with laughter that terrified the saner inhabitants. But it hadn't been an unprovoked attack like they said. Joker's mind presented him again with the sudden pain in his cheek as a little wooden hand struck him, coinciding with the sound of an explosion from news footage, coming through bursts of static. This set off a dizzying riot of violent associations and images deep within the Joker's memory. Caught up in this maelstrom, losing his tenuous identity within it, he leapt up on impulse, brandishing his secret weapon the letter opener and driving the blade into Ventriloquist's arm just beyond where it joined with Scarface. He could remember laughing as he did so because he felt so alive, buffeted by sights and sound and colour.

Now he was here on his own, presumably until Ventriloquist's arm had begun to heal and Joker had calmed down enough to be allowed back out amongst other human beings. That was the theory, but he knew that they'd try to keep him in here as long as was possible without raising suspicions. It was just easier for them that way.

Despite the wild company of his thoughts, he could already feel boredom beginning to set in. Would he still be allowed his sessions with Cavendish whilst in Solitary, or would even that small stimulation be denied him? Without a direction it would be so easy to become lost in his treacherously labyrinthine mind. He could still remember the endless dreary years of Before the Joker, hazy distortions of being shunted from one place to another with no real understanding of what was happening. The destructive force building up inside him until it was so great that he had to turn it in on himself or die. If he knew one thing for certain, he knew that he couldn't allow that to happen again. They couldn't let him go crazy again.

Standing outside of the padded cell that served out its sentence as Solitary, two figures stood, observing the inmate but unobserved by him.

"He's just been lying there for hours, is he alright?" One of the figures, the one that currently occupied the Joker's thoughts almost as much as the Batman, asked.

The other observer, short and stocky next to Cavendish's tall, gaunt form, stared silently through the observation window for a while before answering. When he spoke, his voice had a strange cracked quality to it as if someone had imperfectly snapped his vocal cords, and his accent was unidentifiably European in origin.

"He is alright. When is he due the next injection?"

Cavendish consulted his watch. "Twenty minutes, but it's best if we wait until he's asleep before we administer it."

"Of course."

The two stood silently together, their eyes focused on the man in the padded cell. Like watching a live spark of electricity, the object of their interest was never still. Joker's lips would quirk in a smile, his hand would twitch, the slight tilt of his head as if he had heard a noise, and of course, the compulsive licking of his scars.

Cavendish's companion sighed a little. "I wonder… does he ever sleep?"

This made the psychiatrist scowl. "Of course he sleeps, he's a man isn't he? No man can survive without sleep."

The other glanced at the taller man, the overhead light reflecting off his glasses and for a moment transforming his eyes into two silver-bright gaping holes. "I shall go prepare a hypodermic."

"Step up the concentration this time, would you? We don't seem to have been getting through to him."

Soft footsteps crossed the room behind Cavendish to be swallowed up by the closing of a door. He was alone with his patient. The man who said he had dreamt about darling Odette. The psychiatrist clenched his fists and stared straight ahead. Let the psychopath have his word games and his sick fantasies, soon his dreams would become more useful than even Freud would have been able to hypothesize. His dreams would be a royal road to the subconscious certainly, but not his own subconscious. From there, anything would be possible.

He stood for a long time watching Joker. Gradually the inmate's twitches began to slow and his face relaxed as sleep stole over him. Silently, Cavendish left the room.


	7. Chapter 7

_I'm asleep, you're asleep, we're asleep. What strange roads will we travel together?_

The cantering beat of calliope music diffused through the heavily scented air. This was the Joker's dreamscape, where carousel horses took screaming children on gallops through a distorted hall of mirrors. This was the environment he stalked nightly, king of chaos and master of unreality. Painted clowns dashed around him in undersized cars, guns strapped to their backs within easy reach and fat cigars dangling from between greasy lips.

Gone was the drab Arkham uniform, replaced by a tailored suit of purple and green with all the trimmings. His true face was allowed to be on display to the world, bright red smile and black eyes contained in a corpse-white face and topped with luridly green hair. In the depths of the man's unconscious whilst he slept, the Joker was allowed to reign supreme. He swaggered through the gaudy fairground attractions that littered the floor of his subconscious, the coconut shies, the shooting ranges, Ferris wheels and freak shows. He lingered over the prizes, guns and knives watched over by gape-mouthed cadavers.

Smacking one such stall manager on the shoulder in a gesture of camaraderie caused the creature's head to roll off with a wet snapping sound onto a roulette table. Joker laughed loudly in great whoops of breath as the corpse's head wheeled round and round, finally stopping with its glassy eyes fixed directly on him.

"Snake eyes!" Joker roared with laughter. He gave the roulette board a push to get the head spinning again and then sauntered off, spreading his arms wide in celebration of his kingdom.

There came then a strange break in the continual calliope music, a disorientated jolt of silence before it continued on at a drunken pace, like a record that has been knocked and is then unable to catch up with what was lost, although it tries. One corner of his mouth drawing up in a feral snarl, Joker came to a halt and whipped around in a cautionary circle, sensing the danger that rode in on the wind. He dropped into an instinctive crouch, reaching into his jacket for a weapon when the sound of screeching and flapping filled his head and made him freeze. His attention drawn by the noise, he looked up and saw a shock of bats crazily wheeling across the sky, blocking out all light for a moment.

With a lilting growl of "Batman…" he turned and headed for a rickety fun house, irritably pushing aside a grimy, gaudily coloured tent flap to gain entrance. He stepped not into the rotting, haunted wooden interior of the fun house, but a sprawling city of hyperbolic Gothic design lashed by rain. This was the Batman's dreamscape, where swerving vehicles took sobbing children on ride through crooked streets with crookeder inhabitants.

Theatre lights gleamed brightly, names long-forgotten immortalised for one night only in neon light, a shelter from the perpetual rain. The dreamer ran for the brightness, soaked and freezing, having to avoid the slick automobiles that came roaring past, arcing up tsunamis of rain from beneath their tyres.

Drawing closer to the front of the theatre, he could head the cultured measure of classical music bleeding through its walls. The sound from within blended with the city screams without and the underlying screech of winged creatures to make an intoxicating combination. He lurked in the shadows, eyes closed so that he could hear better. It was a song that he had never heard before but he remembered it well.

Something was wrong. He ground his knuckles against his forehead and tired to think who he was, but he was unable to find the answer.

He looked up when he heard the theatre doors open, although the song within still played on. An elegantly handsome couple emerged, one looked concerned and the other apologetic, shining with wealth and between them a little boy with bright eyes. The boy looked from one parent to another, perhaps wanting to say something but not knowing how to begin. Looking down, the man whose hand he held onto so tightly laughed and reached down to ruffle his dark hair.

But how could he, the dreamer have been watching the boy? He _was_ the boy. Cradled between two loving parents as they left the theatre early, watching his shiny-topped shoes (just like his father's) swallowing up pavement as they walked. There was the feeling of something inside him, gnawing away at his insides, and the feeling that something was about to happen. This something was very bad and it was his fault and no matter how many times he was forced to relive it he would never be able to stop it. Tonight it would be no different and it was that knowledge that scared him more than the something.

Sudden gunshots, an intense wave of loathing and fear, a looming face in the darkness of an alleyway. Screaming, perhaps his own, as the beautiful woman at his side toppled to the pavement, bleeding a broken string of pearls. His father's voice tried to soothe those gunshots, to control them, but he didn't have the power and the gunshots rapped out, louder than his voice to silence him. Two bodies on the concrete and him unable to stop screaming because they were never going to get up again. A hoarse voice from the looming face demanded that he shut up and the voice mingled with the gunshots and laughter and screaming. Then he did shut up because rough hands pulled him close and a knife was gagging him and his parents watched from the pavement with bloody smiles as his cheeks were sliced open.

The dreamer fell through the darkness onto a chair of neutral shape and neutral colour. His head lolled softly to his chest with a dull, muzzy pain as he listened to the indistinguishable voices buzz around him. There was something he was meant to be doing, something… something… He sat up frantically, patting around his waist area for the capsules he knew were hidden in his utility belt. It was all he needed to do to debilitate this crime ring and prove that he wasn't a villain like they all said he was, but his hands came up empty and the dreamer rose to the levels of consciousness that are known as waking.


	8. Chapter 8

Bruce Wayne, the Batman, opened his eyes and for a few moments fought to familiarise himself with his surroundings and identity.

It all came ebbing back to him and the disorientated feeling of unreality faded into forgetfulness as quickly as the strange dreams that had tormented him throughout the night. Morning light, seeping through the thin curtains accosted his eyes, weak and watery as it was and he gave a heartfelt groan. Rubbing the heels of his palms against his eyes, he could almost wish that knowledge of his waking life had not been returned to him. It would be a blessing not to remember why he was on this snapped-spring mattress in a seedy motel on the more 'colourful' side of Gotham. Batman the fugitive. Batman the criminal.

He sat up, pushing the grimy sheet he'd been sleeping under to the end of the bed and staring blankly across the room to where his Batman armour was laid neatly out across a chair. The sight made him smile in spite of himself. The whole situation was so ludicrous and yet so coldly tragic.

"You'd be proud of me, Alfred," he smiled sadly to himself, thinking of all the times his faithful friend and butler had picked up crumpled suits from the floor to spread them neatly over the back of a chair. Although it hurt to think about it, he wondered what Alfred would be doing at that moment. Even with the penthouse empty, he wouldn't allow himself a well-deserved lie in; he'd be up at his usual ungodly hour to keep the house and Bruce Wayne's affairs in order.

Batman snorted slightly as that thought crossed his mind. "And what are _you_ doing this morning, Bruce?" he muttered, not without a slight twinge of jealously for his true identity, the one he'd had to leave behind in the world of Alfreds, penthouses and supermodels. However, the morning was not a time for dark thoughts and self doubt, it was a time for getting things done. With this firmly in mind, he crossed the dingy motel room and expertly donned his armour. He was Batman and there were a lot of things to get done that morning.

Twenty minutes later found him stalking Gotham's back streets, the motel room he had spent the night in long behind him, a roll of bills left beneath the threadbare pillow case in payment. At one with the shadows, moving as silently as they did, he made his was down towards the docks.

The streets made for a depressing tour of the face Gotham never presented to her public. This part of the city had been left to rot and destroy itself with its own misery and corruption. Conventionally recognised authority, the police and the politicians, had no jurisdiction here. They had given that up when they turned their backs. Instead, the area was placed under the savage rule of gangs and crime families such as the Falcones and the Maronis.

Gangsters wanted by the police could walk these streets confidently, throwing their weight around and spreading fear like the plague because there was no one to stop them. As the masked figure of the Dark Knight walked, he saw a display of this lawlessness played out in front of him. A woman, holding a squalling baby to her chest was being kicked out of a run-down house by one such gangster. Brandishing a machine gun, he shouted into her tearful face about late payments. So much injustice and heedless violence, but there was nothing Batman could do – he was a part of it now.

He turned away from the pitiful pleas for a second chance, the sickening thud of a machine gun butt being turned on the defenceless woman, and carried on walking. It was not the worst thing he had done in these past few months and that knowledge disgusted him. But he'd had to learn long ago that in order to save lives he had to stop playing the hero. One day, everything would change and this sort of thing would no longer happen, but today wasn't that day.

Screams of pain rising in volume behind him, he found suddenly that he was drained of energy. He had to lean heavily up against a wall, his body feeling numb and his head pounding muzzily, the sound of his heartbeat keeping time with his vision as it wavered in and out. He put a gloved hand to his head, hearing faint strains of calliope music beneath the noise of the screaming woman, the crying baby and the roar of his own blood in his ears. As his vision greyed out completely, the sounds disappeared along with it to be replaced with singular laughter. Hoarse, wild laughter that went on and on and on and he thought he might be laughing along with it but it was so hard to tell, so hard to concentrate.

Overcome by waves of dizziness and nausea, the laughter filling his head, he staggered down onto his knees, ripping desperately at his mask to remove it because it was too hot. It was so difficult to breath. Most frightening of all though was his sudden wild, irrational urge to run back to that scene of violence and viciously attack the woman and the lone gunman, screaming out along with the laughter that filled his head. He could see himself doing it, his face twisted like an animal's, intoxicated with savagery. The struggle to control that urge weakened him more than the other symptoms, and after an anguished moment he fell forwards, unconscious.

* * *

"And we can trust you?"

"You can trust me. I've proved myself before, haven't I?" Batman rested his eyes on each of the gangsters seated around the table with him in turn, letting his gaze linger on Ben Maroni, the new head of the crime family.

Ben sat back slowly, his hooded eyes lowered as he unhurriedly took a cigarette from an inside pocket of his suit jacket and stuck it between his lips. The man on his other side immediately leant over and lit it for him with a cigarette lighter. The head of the Maronis, under Batman's patient watch, took a few business-like pulls on the cigarette, then took it between his index and middle finger to gesture tightly with it.

"What about the police raid, Bat-boy?" he asked coolly, pulling an ice-filled glass towards him and topping it up from a decanter of liquor that stood on the table. He offered it to the masked man opposite him, who accepted it politely if a little stiffly.

Batman had dragged himself from the alley in which he had fainted, unable to explain what had happened but recovered from it, only just managing to make it to the warehouse on the docks in time for his meeting with Maroni and he hadn't bothered doing so just so they could bring up all of that police raid business again. "We've been over this, I had nothing to do with it," he growled, unable to keep the irritation from his voice.

There were a few jeers in reply to this, but Ben held up a hand to silence them.

"My sources tell me you were spotted on the scene just as the gun fight broke out, _and_ that a couple of days before you, ah, rendezvoused with the Commissioner."

Batman's chair scraped across the floor as he abruptly stood up, his jaw clenched. Immediately, two large men on either side of him also stood. He knew that if he were to look behind him he would see a similar sight in front of the door, the only exit. The material of his gloves creaked as he balled his hands into tight fists. Looking at Ben, leant back in his chair and smoking calmly, Batman could see the amused challenge on his face. 'Just you try it, Bat-boy' that expression said.

A quick appraisal of the two thugs, broken-nosed and tattooed, told the Dark Knight that he could expect to take them down in a fight with the minimum of fuss; same with the two on the door. But he also knew that wouldn't be a wise move, especially with what he had planned for later. He would have to swallow his pride once again, endure the smug look on Maroni's face and submit to the will of gangsters. Bruce Wayne wouldn't have been able to do it, but Batman could and he would.

"You can trust me," he repeated tiredly, reaching out for the glass in front of him and taking a drink.

"My father would have called me a fool for trusting someone of your… background. But he's dead and I'm not, so what does that tell you?" Maroni smirked humourlessly. "You've already proved yourself to be of great help to our, hm-m, _interests_, so I'm going to trust you on this one. It's the most important one of all, so _don't_ screw it up."

Ben deposited his half-smoked cigarette into his drink then retrieved a thick brown envelope from one of the other men. Thin lips drawn back over small, perfect teeth in a predatory smile, he tossed the envelope across the table to the masked man. "And I want it done as soon as possible."

As it skidded across the table, the envelope fell open and a few glossy black and white photographs spilled out. The sort of surveillance photographs familiar to watchers of crime movies. Batman knew whose face would be on those photographs, could feel his heart sinking in quiet despair even as he reached out and pulled the shots to him. He looked down, as he'd expected, on the face of a man he admired, a bespectacled face etched with concern as it turned to speak to someone, oblivious of the fact that it was being photographed by a hidden observer.

Another shot, date and time in the corner, showed him entering police headquarters early in the morning, looking tired and drawn. In another he was standing alone by the smashed bat signal, a cup of coffee in his hands as he stared vacantly out at the rooftops of Gotham City. Seeing it laid out in harsh black and white hurt more than anything. Even Batman couldn't do this. Could he?

"Gordon… You want me to go after Commissioner Gordon."

"You have a problem with that?"

"No problem. I can contact him tonight, arrange a meeting, He'll be out of your way by this time tomorrow."


	9. Chapter 9

James Gordon sat on a chair in his hotel room and waited. His wife thought he was having an affair because he disappeared so often to strange, secret places without a word of explanation only to come back looking uncomfortable and guilty. It hurt her and it hurt him to see her hurt, but there was nothing else he could do. He couldn't let her know that he was continuing to meet with an enemy of the state so that he could keep him up to date on police business, it was far too risky and he could never, never put her at risk again.

A faint rustle of the curtains behind him and he knew that Batman would be standing there, at exactly the time he said he would be and exactly the place he said he would be. If only real affairs could be so reliable. He sighed and rubbed his forehead.

"Commissioner…"

"I know. You're here. What was it you wanted to tell me?" He'd heard something he'd never heard before in the Dark Knight's voice – fear – and it immediately put him on guard, ill at ease. But he couldn't make himself turn around and face the man, not yet.

"How are Barbara and the children?"

Gordon wearily took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. Batman was changing the subject, almost making small talk, his gravelled voice on the verge of catching with nerves that even he couldn't hide. This confirmed what Gordon had been told, what he had hoped so desperately wasn't true. Another brilliant soul perverted and broken because of that damned lunatic Joker. Unable to help himself, he sighed again.

As police Commissioner of GCPD, Gordon had had to do a lot of unpleasant things that he didn't want to do, but this was possibly the worst. Nothing would ever be the same, but he had to do his job and protect his city. Slowly, he stood up and turned to face Batman. "What did you want to tell me?"

So, Batman had seen beneath the surface of that rebuff. He stiffened like an animal that scents danger and even those damn bat ears on his head seemed to prick as he glanced warily around the room, searching for anything that seemed out of place. His movements were odd, jerky. Gordon waited patiently until the fugitive's attention was back on him, the man's eyes filled with a conflicted tension that no mask could hide. The vibes coming from his were even starting to make Gordon uneasy and _he_ knew he was the one in control.

"I spoke to Ben Maroni yesterday. He has something for you."

The Commissioner nodded regretfully. "I know." He felt like he was talking to a complete stranger, not the man he had so often trusted with his life and the lives of others he had sworn to protect.

Again, Batman scrutinized the room, a look of mild surprise on his face. For a moment Gordon could almost have sworn that he smiled, but it must have been a trick of the shadows.

"You know?" The agitation coming from him increased. "Then you also know-"

"Yes. I'm sorry, Batman." Gordon didn't want to do this, but he had to.

Relief seemed to flitter across the caped crusader's face like some long-forgotten phantom and he took a step towards the other man. "I'm sorry too, Commissioner. I-"

That one step was enough for Gordon. He shouted out and the room was suddenly filled with armed policemen, pouring in from the hallway and the en suite bathroom, all shouting commands and brandishing their guns. They'd been told to aim between the joints in the Bat's armour, he was vulnerable there. No direct hits to the chest because the armour was bullet proof. He would appear to be down, but would only be stunned and would attack a man upon their approaching him. Be swift and be brutal, the Bat is highly skilled in hand-to-hand combat and dangerous.

As the policemen burst in, Gordon saw Batman freeze, too surprised to react for a moment. Then he turned frantically from left to right, finding himself surrounded. The look he turned on Gordon the split second before he turned to the window, only to find that escape route also blocked, was confused but resigned. The look of someone who knows they have been betrayed by a trusted friend, but understands the reasoning behind it. That look made the Commissioner feel like a wretched Judas and he wondered if he had possibly made a mistake. But no, that was impossible; Batman had condemned himself by his own actions. He was here to kill Gordon under the instructions of Ben Maroni, just as Gordon had been informed by Maroni squealers.

The ultimate betrayal. Batman was the Judas, not James Gordon.

Gun shots rang out. Surrounded with no chance of escape, Batman had fallen back on violence in order to subdue his adversaries. As he went to strike the first blow, the policemen retaliated by opening fire. The gun shots were deafening, shaking the small room and pounding Gordon's head like iron fists. There was a barely audible grunt of pain as a bullet hit home, burying itself in the flesh of Batman's leg.

The man who had fought to protect Gotham from the likes of Ra's El Ghul, Scarecrow and Joker, staggered and almost fell, hit by a police bullet. Thick, dark blood seeping from between the plates of his distinctive armour, he still tried to effect his escape. One hand fumbled for the objects he kept in his utility belt, the smoke pellets and the batarangs, but as he reached for them the butt of a pistol came down heavily on the back of his head and he crumpled to the floor.

Commissioner Gordon placed a shaking hand over his eyes and wished he were anywhere but here.


	10. Chapter 10

"_And back to our main headlines tonight. Shown here is footage of the Batman being led out of the Arms Hotel, where he was arrested last night following his attempted assassination of Commissioner James Gordon. The Commissioner refused to make a statement, but we were able to talk to Officer Wayland, who shot Batman during the struggle to arrest the criminal. Our reporter Charlie is with him now. Charlie, over to you."_

As the picture on the small television set separated into split-screen in order to accommodate Charlie, Joker threw back his head and laughed until his chest felt like it would burst. "Oh Batsy, Batsy what _are_ we going to do with you?" he grinned, sitting up weakly and wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. "Someone's been a very naughty boy."

He glanced triumphantly across the room at Ventriloquist, who was sat in maudlin contemplation of the bandage around his arm. The schizophrenic's wound had become infected, so to aid the healing process, Arkham doctors had thought it best if Ventriloquist was separated from Scarface for a little while. Without the dummy to hide behind, he'd become even more fearful and retiring. Now, the man who a few days ago had tried to pick on the Joker flinched and fidgeted under his former intended-victim's look, not daring to say anything.

The guard on duty started forwards in a warning, but Joker was satisfied with the other inmate's cowering and turned back to the screen. He still couldn't quite believe he had been treated so leniently about the whole stabbing incident. After a few days of Solitary, Cavendish had came and told him that he was being let out early because of 'good behaviour'. What exactly this 'good behaviour' had been was beyond Joker, all he had done in that miserable padded cell was lay on the floor, knocked flat by the vivid but fragmented hallucinations that had filled his head.

He remembered one of these hallucinations most clearly. Some man with a gun had been attacking a woman and he had wanted so badly to join in the chaos, show that man how it was really done. He had even tried turning the hallucination back around and marching it back to the previous scene. Then a strange sickness had come over him and he didn't know what had happened after that. Know-it-all Cavendish had told him he'd suffered a minor epileptic fit even though he had no history of epilepsy, which was another reason why they had let him out of Solitary early.

Joker secretly reckoned that the fit had been brought on by an overload of boredom. His under-stimulated brain must have just turned in on itself, all guns blazing. He was glad to be out of Solitary and now the news of Batman's arrest and the attempted murder of Commissioner Gordon. This was quite possibly the best week of Joker's life. Nothing could spoil it.

"That's not Batman."

Joker twitched ever so slightly and made a sound of derision as he turned to the man who had spoken. "What would you know about it, _Riddler_?"

The inmate sitting beside Joker, one leg crossed prissily over the other, gestured delicately at the screen. "I happen to know quite a lot, my fine felon. Batman is the greatest riddle of all, thus I have been studying him for a long time. I know everything about the way he speaks, thinks and moves; every idiosyncrasy and every nuance in his voice is as familiar to me as my own. So believe me when I say that was _not_ Batman."

The authority in his voice was enough to make the other man glance dubiously at the television, but the news had already moved on. Forest fires were sweeping the outside world it seemed.

"You've done your homework wrong," he growled irritably. "If you know so much about him, then who is he?"

He smirked at the falter this put in the man who introduced himself only as Riddler's smug expression.

"Like I said, Batman is the greatest riddle of all. Why is a raven like a writing desk? Who is the Batman? Life's greatest unsolved riddles, but I will find the answers out one day and at any cost."

Feeling suddenly vexed by the whole conversation, Joker leant forwards and violently snapped the television off. He felt strange and jittery altogether, like something was going on that he didn't quite know about yet, a mental itch he couldn't quite get at to scratch. "No wonder you're locked up here," he muttered.

Riddler pointedly ignored the jibe. He clasped his thin hands over his knee and fixed the only acquaintance he had in this godforsaken place with an eerily intense look. "If you ask me, the supposed Batman was displaying more of _your_ characteristic traits."

This struck some kind of chord that sounded a note of sense to Joker, although he wasn't yet prepared to admit it. Settling back again, almost enjoying the conversation, he rubbed absently at a half-registered pain in his leg. "What are you, a psychiatrist? What can _you_ tell me about my 'characteristic traits'?"

"People are riddles and I like riddles. You'd see the similarities between you and him if I pointed them out to you."

It occurred to Joker how nice it was to have a simple argument with someone and how long it had been since anyone had spoken to him like this, like an equal. Prepared to make the most out of it, he ran his tongue out across his lips and crossed his arms in an argumentative manner as he got into a rhetoric niche. "But you're not going to point them out to me, are you? Because you're making it all up."

"I assure you, I'm not."

Joker thought about this. Then, leaning in a little closer to the other man he said quietly "What about the riddle of combination locks on safes? How do you feel about them?"

"Alright you two, social time is over."

It was sickening, it really was. Constant interruptions every time things got slightly interesting. Moving with careful deliberation, Joker pressed his lips tightly together, glanced up at the guard standing over him and then back to Riddler. He seemed about to say something else, but thought better of it and silently stood up instead.

"Nighty-night Riddler, I hope the guards don't bite," he bid his farewells accompanied by a mockingly deep bow. Obviously in the mood to antagonise he leered and winked at the waiting guard, who did his best to ignore it. The other inmate nodded a more polite goodbye.

As he was being escorted from the room, Joker abruptly stopped in his tracks and turned back to face Riddler, one finger pressed to his forehead as if he had just remembered something. "You do realise dear Riddler, if that was indeed the real Batman, then your life's mission is about to be made redundant. They're not going to go to all the trouble of arresting him without also unmasking him to the nation. Someone else is going to solve your riddle."

He didn't get to see what effects his words had on the other man because the guard yanked him forwards by the arm, growling "Come on, you're already late for your evening medication."

Evening medication consisted of waiting in a small side room whilst a nurse, flanked by two orderlies in muscle-strained white t-shirts, counted out various pills tailored to the individual maniac's needs. Joker watched dully as her pudgy fingers manipulated the medication into a little Styrofoam cup. There went the lozenge-shaped white sleeping pill to keep him quiet throughout the night, a slightly larger tranquiliser tablet to discourage riots at the breakfast table, the small pink anti-depressant and the one for taming ADHD-type symptoms of the mind joined it, even though Joker still thought he didn't need the last two. With that done, he should have been allowed to step forwards and collect the little cocktail of drugs, but before he did he saw another pill being added. One of a sickly yellow colour he'd never seen before.

When prompted to take the cup from the nurse's table, he firmly placed his hand over its rim, blocking its dubious contents from sight. "What was that fifth one?" he demanded with a false politeness that dripped with hostility. "I haven't been told about any new medication."

The nurse's behemoth shoulders heaved in an impenetrable shrug. "Standard addition, all the patients are receiving it."

"Mm-m… But what is it?"

It was bad enough that he had to take all the other rubbish every night. After his unpleasant experiences in Solitary, he wasn't prepared to take any chances on some new drug that might put him through the mental-wringer again; he could do that perfectly well all by himself. The nurse stoically ignored his question, so he drew back his hand and prepared to knock the cup to the floor. A small statement perhaps, but effective enough to get his message across.

Before his palm could even reach the cup on its intended course of action, the thick hand of one of the hovering orderlies intercepted it by grabbing his wrist. Looking up, Joker recognised the steely-eyed glare of a man who is prepared not only to use violence but also to enjoy it, so he decided to get in the first move.

With no particular plan of what he was hoping to ultimately achieve, knowing only that he didn't trust that little yellow pill, he sharply kicked out at the orderly's knee. The man buckled under the sudden hit with a yell of pain, letting go of Joker's wrist. The inmate had time to wish that he'd been allowed to keep his boots with the knife embedded in the soles before he was grabbed between the uninjured orderly and the guard.

Holding Joker's arms behind his back, the two of them slammed his head down onto the table. Beside his ear he heard the pills rattle in their cup as grey flowers bloomed across his vision. He groaned quietly to himself, giving a few angry jerks against the rough hands that held him pinned down.

"This is hospital brutality," he complained, his words muffled by the table top that was pressing against the side of his face. "All you're doing is reinforcing my aggressive behaviour patterns and justifying my negative schema. By banging my head against a table, you're telling me that it's alright to react violently when challenged. Which," he added, struggling again as his arm was pushed painfully up behind his back, "is _not_ what Doc. Cavendish has been telling me."

Apparently this didn't bother anyone present in the room because he felt a hand sink into his hair and forcefully drag his head up. For a moment he was faced by the blank, doughy visage of the nurse, who stared at him without emotion, and then his head was pulled back further and he was engaged by the vicious smile of the orderly whose knee he'd damaged. Agitated, he smiled back just as humourlessly and licked the corners of his lips.

"Are you having as much fun as I am?" he laughed softly.

"You sick bastard," the orderly growled down at him.

Joker opened his mouth to reply that this wasn't a very valuing thing to say to someone interned in a psychiatric hospital, but his tongue was stilled by foul-tasting fingers forcing themselves between his jaws, holding them open. Realising what was about to happen, the criminal struggled violently but the pills were still inserted into his mouth and his tongue was depressed enough to activate his gag reflex and make him automatically swallow. He almost choked on the pills, but they still went down.

Then the blow to the head must have caught up with him, because everything went black.


	11. Chapter 11

When he came to, he had no idea where he was.

"This is not the real Batman; this is just a very sick man who believes that he is the real Batman. It is a common symptom of schizophrenic delusion, the belief that one is someone else. We call it Napoleon Syndrome, I'm sure you, _ahaha_, can understand why."

Voices that he didn't recognise washed in and out of his hearing, like waves lapping rhythmically over the stranded body of a ship wreck deposited on the shore. He could almost believe that he was underwater, were it not for the fact that he could breathe. His eyelids felt too heavy to open, so he kept them closed.

"So you want me to take him?" A new voice, strangely accented, spoke. Was he in another country? What had happened?

"Well, the assassination attempt does put him in your category of the criminally insane."

There was the strange sensation of being two people at once. It was like there was another person, another him, squatting in his head and listening in on the conversation he was listening in on and probably making more sense of it too. The voices came closer and so did the other him, crowding up against the inside of his skull, an eager eavesdropper pressing his ear up against the door.

"We, er, had to sedate him. He was raving endlessly about riddles and ventriloquist dummies and he kept screaming at somebody to get off of him when there was no one there. It was starting to upset some of the younger nurses."

Two darker shapes in his already dark world told him that the two speakers were standing over him where he was lying on a hard, uncomfortable surface. He wished they would go away and leave him to figure out what was happening on his own.

"Let me just take this off of him…"

A slight shift in the surrounding air told him that two hands were reaching down towards his face. In a flash he knew for certain that he couldn't let those hands touch him. There was something stiff, mask-like over the upper part of his face and head, and although he couldn't think why, he knew it was imperative that no one removed it. The fear of that happening gave him the strength to break from his strange paralysis. Opening his eyes, he gave an inarticulate cry of protest and reached up to stop his unknown assailant… only to find that he couldn't move his arms. He was restrained by the types of padded cuffs seen on beds in psychiatric wards.

"No!" The accented voice spoke sharply and he was grateful for it. Looking up, he could see that the voice belonged to a stocky bespectacled man whose neatly trimmed goatee beard looked too small on his large jowly face. "If you remove the mask, you remove his identity and his whole delusion shatters. The shock of it would be very dangerous to him, it could break his mind."

"Of course, I'm so sorry. I wasn't thinking…" the other man, nervous looking with a receding chin and pale watery eyes flustered, quickly drew back.

"Obviously," the bearded one muttered dryly. "That is why you are still grinding the mill in Gotham Central whilst I am head of Arkham Asylum. Now go and prepare a gurney for transporting my patient."

Blushing fiercely, the other man fled with a hurried "Yes, Doctor Strange."

He was left alone with the bearded one, who reached down and cupped his chin in one hand, turning his face back and forth like a prize horse on show. He wanted to close his eyes again, but didn't dare.

"These past few days must have been very difficult for you, Batman." The bearded one spoke in caressing tones. "But do not worry, soon everything will be explained to you. I think you will be interested in what I have achieved; a man of your intelligence will be able to appreciate the hardships I had to go through to get to where we are now. I only hope you are not too unreasonable about what I have done; I would hate to have to destroy all my hard work before it has been completed."

The hand paternally stroked his cheek, but then it forced his mouth open and before he realised what was happening, a little yellow pill had been slipped into his mouth and he had swallowed it.


	12. Chapter 12

'_Batsy… Ba-a-atsy…'_

The voice seemed to come from inside his head rather than from any external source. With a half-waking mind, still full of dreams, this seemed to make perfect sense so he thought back _'Who are you?'_

'_I'm the Ghost of Christmas Past. Come with me, I want to show you your parents.'_

Batman jerked violently into wakefulness, alert and ready to fight. He found himself lying on his side in what incongruously – or maybe not so – seemed to be a small room with mattress padding stuck to its walls. Lying opposite him with a mocking smile on his face was "Joker!"

He looked different without his make up, less vivid somehow but no less grotesque, however by the looks of the scarring it was without a doubt the same man that the Dark Knight had fought for Gotham's soul.

"Good morning, sweetcheeks. Did you have pleasant dreams?"

"You! You're behind all this."

"Oh, I wish I was Batsy. But see, I'm just an innocent victim in this madness, the same as you." To prove his point, Joker moved his arms and Batman saw that the criminal's hands were cuffed behind his back. As were his own hands, he realised as he tried to sit up, but found he was unable to manage.

"What's going on?"

'_I _knew_ you were interesting. The moment I saw you I thought to myself 'now here is someone that is interesting'. But I never imagined just how interesting you really are.'_

"Get out of my head."

'_I can't help it. We're two of a kind Batsy, I belong here.'_

With a snarl, Batman pushed himself to his knees and lunged at the clown, determined to get a straight answer out of him by any means necessary. His eyes widening along with his grin, Joker rolled onto his back and inclined his head towards something behind the masked vigilante.

"Ah-ah-ah Batsy…" he cautioned in a lilting voice. "You're in Arkham Asylum now and you'd better behave because they can see _everything_ you do."

Warily, Batman turned his head to look over his shoulder and saw a small mirror set amongst the padding on the wall at just below average head-height. No, not just a mirror, it was one-way glass.

'_Got it in one.'_

"Stay out of my head."

Not seeming to be listening, Joker shifted his weight to get more comfortable and stared up at the ceiling. Contentedly, he rolled his shoulders to keep his arms from going numb. He seemed very well versed in these kinds of situations, perfectly at home. Batman could only wonder what the man's history was, and even with this strange telepathic bond between them he wanted to go no further than that.

"You ever heard of a guy, calls himself the Riddler?"

Thinking he was about to receive some important information about his situation, Batman checked the one-way glass mirror again with the hope that it was soundproof and then looked back at Joker with a shake of his head. "No. Who is he?"

"Oh, you should look out for him then. He's a nice guy; I think you'll like him."

The Dark Knight clenched his jaw to keep his anger in reign. It was the last thing he wanted in the world, to be stuck in a room with the psychopath responsible for the deaths of Rachel and Harvey. It would be so easy to lose control and break every moral rule he had ever imposed upon himself.

To keep his mind from going down that dangerous path, and because he needed a distraction from the predatory shark-like way Joker was watching him, he pushed himself to his feet and took a prowl around the room. If he could familiarise himself with his surroundings then he would have more chance of gaining the upper hand in any fights that might break out, he might even find a way out of here. The sound of his boots on the floor was absorbed by the padded walls, creating an eerie silence.

"So, Caped Crusader, I hear you tried to off old Gordon."

Batman froze and clenched his fists behind his back, struggling with the anger and shame that threatened to overcome him. Yet riding in behind Joker's words was the thought _'It's nothing personal'_ along with a strange mental image of a dog being pulled along in the slipstream of a very fast vehicle. Despite his anger, Batman had to believe this, because it was true. He could feel that it was true, even if he couldn't explain why or how there was this psychic link between him and Joker.

Starting to feel disconcerted by the uncertainty of it all, he faltered "I didn't – it wasn't…"

"Aw come on, if you can't tell a psychopath, who can you tell?"

"You can see what I'm thinking, you tell me."

"I used that argument on a psychiatrist just the other day." Joker stared sideways at the other man for a few moments and then shrugged. "I can only see what you're currently thinking, nothing beyond that."

A grim smile twisted the Dark Knight's face. "And what am I thinking now?"

Intrigued by the open invitation Joker closed his eyes and titled his head, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as if he were a student of foreign languages listening in on a faraway conversation held in the language he was studying. His eyes suddenly opened and lit up, a maniac grin stretching his face as he struggled to push himself into a sitting position. "Risky, but that's what I like about you," he murmured feverishly as he managed to get up. "Of course, we'll have to work together, implicit trust in one another and all that, how delicious. The hero and the villain working together. You'll even know when I'm about to stab you in the back."

"If you shut up this will go much easier."

Miraculously, the madman did shut up. Taking his cue from the plan he had seen formulated in Batman's mind, he stood up and backed carefully towards him, keeping check on his direction with frequent glances over his shoulder. The closer he got the more tangible the tension between them became. By the time he was standing directly in front of the masked vigilante, looking at a mental cross section of the man's utility belt, the tension was practically a solid force, guiding his hand to the right pocket so that he wouldn't stray off course. It was a very strange sensation, but interesting nonetheless.

It was lucky that Batman had been allowed to keep the utility belt on, considering his scarred counterpart wasn't even permitted to wear shoelaces. Either it was gross negligence on the part of those who had brought him here, or it had been left on for the same reason as his mask; which still didn't make much sense, because now in full possession of his reasoning faculties, Batman knew who he was and that this certainty didn't stem from schizophrenic delusion like those doctors had said. But no matter, as soon as he was free he'd work out what was going on and the mystery would be solved.

"I wouldn't start feeling sane so soon. Riddler didn't think you were the real Batman either and _he_ knows you better than he knows himself. But don't worry, _I_ know who you are."

"You're wasting time, hurry up." The Dark Knight chose to ignore the ominous implications of that last sentence. There were more important things to worry about at that moment.

"Ta-da!" Joker smirked, triumphantly holding up in his cuffed hands the skeleton key he had retrieved from the utility belt.

"Good. Now, back to back."

With their backs to each other, ferociously watching each other's minds for warning of a double cross, Joker fumbled to insert the key into the lock of Batman's cuffs. There was a click as it went in and turned smoothly. Handcuffs dropping to the floor, the Dark Knight was free.

This was now the most difficult part of the escape plan, the part where Joker had to display more trust in another person than he had ever had in his life. He had to hand over the key. This move would leave him vulnerable with the man whose love he had killed. He could see this in the other's mind now; Harvey hadn't been the only one who loved Rachel, hadn't been the only one destroyed by her death. Seeing this, the murderer tightened his hand around the key, unprepared to trust.

'_Give me they key, I promised I would unlock you and I always keep my promises. You should know that.'_

Integrity could be a useful thing, as long as it was in other people, the clown decided. He was also encouraged by the patient way Batman stood waiting instead of simply just taking what he wanted, encouraged and amused. Without reluctance, he opened his hands.

'_Whatever they're doing here, it isn't right,' _Batman thought to the other man as he took the key. _'_Arkham_ isn't right. You need to be somewhere you'll get proper help.'_

'_Is that what you're planning to do with me?' _Joker sneered.

The bat didn't reply, merely went to unlock the cuffs. Before he could, the door burst violently open. The two captives looked up sharply and froze. Standing in the doorway with sinister smiles on their faces were Doctor Cavendish and the short, bearded man known as Doctor Hugo Strange, head of Arkham Asylum.

"I hate to interrupt, just as the two of you were getting along so well, but we have work to do," Doctor Strange said as he strode into the room, briskly clapping his chubby hands together. "Experiments do not run themselves."

"What's going on?" Batman demanded as he raised his fists in readiness to fight his way to freedom.

"You will find out soon enough, Dark Knight," the psychiatrist soothed. He slowly approached the vigilante, palms held out in placating gesture. Once he was close enough, he reached into the confines of his white laboratory coat with surprising speed to draw out a riot stick and club the other man over the back of the head with it before he had time to react.

Joker, still handcuffed, cursed as the bat crumpled to the floor, wincing as he felt the pain of the blow on the back of his own neck. The phantom pain was soon joined by a real one as he received the same treatment from Doctor Cavendish. Going down, he had the distinct thought that life in Arkham seemed to be one black out after another and then he knew no more.


	13. Chapter 13

There was an unusual lightness about Batman's head that alerted him to danger before he had fully regained consciousness. He tried lifting his hands to his face to discover what was different, but his wrists seemed to be held down by something. There was a dull pain in the back of his neck from where he'd been knocked out. This was the worst part of waking up, he decided, the few seconds in which memories came rushing painfully back and you find out what new peril you are ensnared in.

He quickly brought himself up to date on his current situation. He was sitting on a hard-backed chair, from what he could tell it was in the vague style of the executioner's electric chair, his wrists and ankles bound to it so that he couldn't move. His head felt strangely light because someone had cracked part of his cowl to get to the skin of his forehead and temples, but his face had been allowed to remain sufficiently covered to hide his identity. This in itself was odd; why would someone go to the trouble of keeping his mask as in tact as possible when it would have been much easier to take it off and expose him? However, that was the least of his worries.

A glance sideways told him that Joker, another mystery Batman didn't have time to solve, was in pretty much the same condition as he. Still unconscious, he was slumped in the chair he was strapped to, head lolling sideways on his shoulder and his mouth hanging open as if he were having nothing more than a relaxing nap in a comfortable armchair, instead of being unconscious in what looked disturbingly like a death device. Electrodes were affixed to his forehead, so Batman assumed the same was so for him. Moving the muscles on his face, he found he was able to feel where they were stuck to his own skin.

His eyes followed the wires from those electrodes as they snaked around the legs of the chair and across a concrete floor to a large, complicated looking device. A dull metal colour, numerous wires winding in and out of it, the machine was covered in a multitude of switches and dials, too many for even the Batman to make sense of. Engrossed in the workings of this machine, his back to the Dark Knight, was the squat form of Doctor Strange, muttering to himself as he set various controls, a barely contained excitement making his movements seem rushed and jerky.

Standing a little apart from the small hub of activity was Doctor Cavendish, trying to look calm and in control but failing miserably. Batman recognised him from Joker's thoughts and experienced a surge of hatred that was not his own for the psychiatrist.

Cavendish, sensing that he was being watched, looked up and scowled. Crossing the short distance between him and Strange, he tapped the doctor briskly on the shoulder and leant in close to murmur something. In response, Strange looked casually over his shoulder, turning a dial up a few notches, and then nodded at Cavendish. Batman watched grimly as the shorter doctor approached him, Cavendish taking up the vacated position at the machine. Strange walked slowly, exultantly towards the bat, an intolerably smug expression on his face.

'_Joker, I think you should wake up.'_

"It is good to see you conscious, Batman. I am so sorry our first meeting had to be so unpleasant, I really do admire you. What do you think of my laboratory?"

'_I _am _awake. My, my, this is an original setup – a doctor with a secret laboratory.'_

"Untie me. Whatever you're planning, it's not going to work." Batman said out loud whilst thinking somewhat pettily _'Like a clown who does magic tricks?'_

'_That's different, you cretin.'_

Doctor Strange smiled coldly and murmured "On the contrary, Caped Crusader. It is already half-way completed." He leant down and adjusted a couple of electrodes through the gaps created in the cowl of the vigilante, who snarled and jerked his head away.

"I didn't sign any forms about electric shock therapy," Joker spoke up in an amused voice, indicating the electrodes with a movement of his head.

"Ah, but this is not electric shock therapy. This is something completely different." The doctor took a few steps back and clasped his hands beneath his substantial paunch as he prepared to address his captive audience. His shiny eyes, magnified behind rimless spectacles, rested first on one man and then the other. He was met in one case with unhinged excitement and the other with grim determination; yin and yang, two sides of the same coin, two truths of the human condition. He smiled to himself and cleared his throat, like he used to when lecturing medical students.

"No doubt you are both wondering why you are here."

Joker groaned very quietly and rolled his eyes. _'He's about to describe his evil plan to us, complete with marginal notes and a bibliography.'_

"You have both been privileged enough to take part in my, Doctor Hugo Strange's, experiment. Over the past few days, you will have been experiencing each other's thoughts and lives, at first in dreams and then in waking moments. Perhaps you have even felt a loss of your own personality. All this has been happening because of me."

'_You'd know all about that.'_

"With the assistance of Doctor Cavendish, I was able, a few months ago, to create a drug that opens up neural pathways in such a way as to create a psychic link between two persons."

'_Excuse me? I've never detailed a plan to a victim, no matter how ingenious it's been. The very most I've ever done is to _explain_ myself.'_

"Needing a test subject, I chose our good friend Joker, inmate 7501, a lifer of no emotional interest to anyone. Because he was so obsessed with you, the Batman, the drugs caused him to forge a connection between the two of you and it was your thoughts he gained access to. Imagine my delighted surprise when I found that my hypotheses had been correct and that Batman had also been affected, causing him to display character traits of my pet lunatic, which were noted when he was arrested. Due to this, Caped Crusader, you were branded a lunatic by the police and once your shot wound was healed at the hospital, you were put into my possession here at Arkham."

"The violent impulse I felt towards that woman…?" Batman spoke with sudden understanding.

Doctor Strange nodded proudly. "…Was the Joker's violent impulse. His mind at that point had become a part of yours.

"No doubt you have been wondering why I refused to allow them to remove your mask and why even now you still wear it. I can explain. Joker is obsessed with the Batman, not your real identity, so if the mask was removed you would cease to be Batman and the link would be put at peril, which I cannot allow to happen. But I digress…

"Once you were handed over to me, I was able to give you a dose of the same drug Joker had been taking and the link between you was finalised. From monitoring brain scans of the two of you I have seen that you can read each other's topmost thoughts, experience the other's pain and basic feelings, and communicate through telepathy. However, this is not enough. I want there to be complete understanding between you, right down to the recesses of the subconscious; I want you to be able to influence each other's actions. Then my experiment will be complete."

"You're sick Strange," the Dark Knight said in disgust. "You can't play with people's minds like that."

"Maybe so, but one man's sickness is another man's cure, yes?

"I was left only with the problem of how to deepen the psychic link. Not by raising the dosage of the drug, other test subjects proved that to be a disastrous route to go down. Above a certain level of concentration, the subject's mind was wiped and they became a vegetable, as tragically happened with the inmate Cobblepot. But science cannot advance without a few losses."

Batman was momentarily distracted by a strange burst of emotion reaching him from the other captive. The emotion felt odd because Joker had never truly experienced it before, but Batman had many times and he recognised it as a sense of loss. Joker had known this Cobblepot – an image of a waddling avianesque man came to mind – and was sorry for what had become of him. The Dark Knight glanced sideways at the other man in mild surprise, pleased to know that there was some semblance of humanity behind the scars.

All this went unnoticed by Doctor Strange, who continued to talk. "How to deepen the link? And then I stumbled across the answer – electricity! Used to control and tame the mind for decades. A large enough jolt of electricity should concrete the bond between your two minds, creating a deep and permanent link. However, the contents of each mind needs a buffer to go through, something to focus the direction of the psychic energy, and that is where Doctor Cavendish comes in."

Strange turned to the other man, who had been left forgotten at the machine, and found himself looking down the barrel of a gun.

All eyes were suddenly on the implacable Cavendish, who calmly cocked the gun in preparation to fire, levelling it at Strange's face. The taller psychiatrist's hands were shaking and his face was unhealthily pale and drawn. He wiped his free hand nervously across his lips then placed it over his other hand on the gun in an attempt to steady it.

"No Doctor Strange," he said in a strangled voice. "This is where you step out."

Their minds combining under the stress of the situation, Batman let out the harsh, barking laugh meant for the Joker's lips, whilst Joker could only watch helplessly, crying out in impotent anger and horror as Cavendish jumped, startled, his finger convulsively squeezing the trigger and sending a deadly bullet hurtling through the air towards Doctor Strange.


	14. Chapter 14

Hysterical laughter provided a macabre soundtrack as Doctor Strange collapsed to the floor.

Cavendish, his hands shaking so much that the smoking gun nearly skittered out from his fingers, stood over the body with the maniacal laughter booming in his ears.

"Shut up," he said quietly, more to himself than anyone else. Hearing this, Batman shook with mirth he couldn't control, retching hyena howls. "Shut up, _shut up_!" The psychiatrist broke into a shout, pressing one clenched fist to the side of his head.

Shrill laughter continued to pollute the air for a split second after the cry rang out, then it gradually died down to gasping whoops and then it was nothing but echoes bouncing back and forth on the cavernous walls, leaving Batman weak and nauseous.

"I refuse to be your pawn anymore, Strange." Cavendish told the felled doctor, who groaned and rolled over onto his side. He had managed to get away with nothing more lethal than a shot in the shoulder, although this left him steadily pooling thick red blood on the floor. Coughing weakly from the acrid after-smell of gunpowder, he clasped a hand over his injured shoulder to stem the bleeding and pressed his sweating face to the cool concrete.

"You've pushed me around for long enough. I never wanted to be a part of your ridiculous plans; all I've ever wanted to be is a good psychiatrist, someone who _helps_ the inmates, not subjects them to crazy experiments. Well I've had enough, it ends here."

Joker would have applauded had his wrists not been strapped down.

"I am…" Doctor Strange gingerly pushed himself up, mindful of the weapon that was still trained on him. "I am sorry that you feel that way, Cavendish. If perhaps you had thought to tell me your feelings earlier, we could have avoided all this."

The taller man backed off warily as the other stood, swaying a little uncertainly on his feet and clutching at his wound. Cavendish came up short and glanced wildly over his shoulder when he realised that he had backed straight into the machine.

'_Ten bucks he doesn't have the guts to shoot again.'_

'_I wouldn't be so sure…'_ Batman thought back, even though he was irritated by the mental interruption and disgusted with the mirth he'd been forced to express. But it was true; Cavendish looked just about desperate enough to shoot again, this time to kill. The Dark Knight had seen that look so many times before and he knew how it would end if he couldn't get free in time to stop it.

With this thought burning in his mind, he fought to free himself so that in turn he could free the two psychiatrists from the death struggle they were locked in, but it was no good. Obviously, Doctor Strange had foreseen reluctance in his patients, for the straps were too heavy duty for even the Batman's enhanced strength. Try as he might to break free, he knew in the more rational part of his brain that there was nothing he could do except watch this death dance played out. It wouldn't end until one of the psychiatrists were dead.

"Arkham is sick, _sick_!" Doctor Cavendish was screaming, his face twisted with passion, a thin line of saliva running from the side of his mouth. "Sicker than any of its inmates and you Hugo, you're the cancer that spreads the sickness! Stop this madness now, or I'll stop it myself!"

There was a deafening bang as the gun was fired again. Strange easily dodged the wild shot as it went sailing over his head to become embedded in the floor just shy of Joker's feet, sending up little shards of concrete and dust. Letting his momentum carry him forwards, Doctor Strange lunged at the shooter, grabbing him by the lapels of his neatly pressed jacket and slamming him bodily into the machine. A sickening crunch announced something inside of Cavendish breaking. The psychiatrist writhed in pain, dropping the gun to the floor with a clatter.

"You have been working too hard, Cavendish," Strange snarled up in the taller man's face, slamming him against the machine again. "I think perhaps you should take a vacation." Wrenching a wire free of the contraption, sending electrical sparks spitting and flying, he jammed the loose end up against Cavendish's neck.

A horrifying, anguished scream sounded as thousands of volts went coursing through the psychiatrist's body. Batman closed his eyes and turned his face away, not wanting to share in the man's last agonising moments, but he could still see it being played out vividly behind his closed eyelids, transmitted from the Joker who was watching it all avidly. Against his will, Batman saw the smoking body hit the floor, saw Doctor Strange stand calmly over it, pushing his spectacles back up his nose with one finger.

"What a pity…" the doctor murmured, delicately prodding the corpse with the toe of his shoe. "I shall have to act as the buffer myself now."

"You're not going to be doing anything, Strange; you've just killed a man," Batman growled, struggling ferociously to free himself once again. More than anything he wanted this insane killer brought to justice, even if handing him in would mean losing his own freedom. The Dark Knight, after all, was a wanted criminal.

"It is all for the progress of science," Strange murmured distractedly, as if he had done nothing more dramatic than tread on an insect in his path. He reached out to the machine, in his concentration forgetting about his gun shot wound, and was forced to wince and draw back. The once-white sleeve of his laboratory coat was now stained a bright, lurid red. He was losing a lot of blood, might only have minutes of consciousness left – he would have to complete the experiment swiftly.

'_Another escape plan would be great right around now.'_ Joker's voice broke into Batman's thoughts as he watched the squat psychiatrist feverishly turning dials and flicking switches.

'_I came up with the last one, it's your turn,'_ he replied irritably, frustratingly devoid of any ideas. His mind felt blank, exhausted.

Doctor Strange had finished adjusting the controls and now he attached four electrodes to his own forehead and temples, linking him with the two other men. Eyes shining with excitement and an oily sheen of sweat filming his face, he turned to his test subjects and announced "It is begun!" Letting out a wild shriek of laughter, he turned back and threw the final lever needed to set it all in motion.

There was a crackle of electricity and all the lights dimmed for an instant only to flare up even more brilliantly. Batman had time to hope that the experiment wasn't going to work, that maybe something vital had been broken when Cavendish was bashed against the machine, and then the pain hit him. It was excruciating, more painful than broken bones or fire or gun shot wounds, it filled his world and threatened to destroy him. There had never been pain like this before.

Gritting his teeth to keep from crying out, he hunched into himself as much as his bonds would allow and concentrated on embracing the pain and turning it to his advantage as he had been taught by Ra's Al Ghul. It was difficult, almost impossible, requiring a superhuman effort of will that surely was beyond his abused and battered body, but after a few moments he thought that he was beginning to master it. Instead of feeling as if his whole body was being consumed by indescribable pain, he found he was able to discern the exact location and nature of the hurt. Concentrating harder, shaking with the effort, he could feel electricity from the electrodes sizzling and burning around the inside of his skull. He found he could actually feel the essence of his mind being dragged out along the wires to Strange's brain, whilst the fundamental parts of Joker's mind was forced into his consciousness and made an integral part of it.

He lost control for a moment when the full force of the psychopath's mind hit him, making him cry out. Everything, including his sense of self, ceased to exist in that screaming, jumbled mess of sights and sounds and sensations. Things bled and ran into each other in unholy union, skittering and slipping, with no coherent pattern to aid understanding. Nothing stayed the same for long, changing and mutating even as he looked at it. Tyrants turned to victims and pleasure to pain and lovers to executioners. One moment he was a child with his face in the mud, next a man firing a gun, then something that was abstract and insubstantial, nothing but an idea of a concept. He thought he was going to throw up.

That feeling, so personal and primal, brought him out of Joker's nightmare world and back into his own pain. The pain was okay because he could control it and he knew now how he was going to use it. But he wouldn't be able to do it alone.

Ignoring Doctor Strange, who was swaying and gasping in his own world, he glanced across to Joker. The man was slumped awkwardly in the chair that held him, his limbs sticking out at all the wrong angles, with his head thrown back and his eyes turned up to the whites. He must have been getting the worst of the electric shocks, because his body spasmed and jerked erratically, making him look like an ill-controlled puppet.

'_Joker? Joker!' _Batman's mind cried out in desperation. _Please let him be alright, he's my only chance. 'Joker?'_

The body continued to twitch in what looked horribly like death throes, but Joker's voice came through clear and alive. _'What do you want?'_

'_You're okay?'_

'_Of course I'm okay. I haven't had this much fun since my ex-girlfriend dropped a live radio in the bath when she found out I was cheating on her.'_

It was hard to tell whether this was to be taken as sarcastic or not so Batman decided to ignore it. _'Joker, listen, I think I know how to stop this. Our thoughts are being channelled through Strange, so if we concentrate hard enough we should be able to short circuit the link. Understand?'_

'_Receiving you loud and clear, Batsy. Oh, so _that's_ Alfred. A bit old to still be walking around on earthly planes, isn't he?'_

'_Joker, concentrate!'_

'_I will, I will. Lighten up, Batsap.'_

How could Joker be so perky under such an amount of pain, Batman wondered. That communication, the concentration it had required to form intelligible words and sentences had all but exhausted the Dark Knight. His head felt like it was being ripped apart. He was suddenly unsure if he had the strength left to carry out his plan. But of course he had the strength – he would _make_ himself have the strength. Strange couldn't be allowed to get away with what he had done because of Batman's weakness.

The pressure in his head began draining away, giving him more room to think clearly and he realised that the Joker must have started channelling all his mental energy into Strange. With some of the pain alleviated, Batman was able to do the same. Staring hard at the psychiatrist, he focused everything that was being sucked along those wires directly into the short figure, imagining it hitting a road block in his head, building up like water pressure behind a dam. He knew it must have been working because the more water he saw massing behind that dam, the less his head felt like it was being pulled in several directions at once.

Doctor Strange must have felt the change as well because suddenly his eyes flew open, starting from their sockets in blind fear and amazement. He scrabbled wildly at the electrodes on his head, trying to remove them, but he seemed unable to effectively control his movements. Still Batman concentrated his efforts on the psychiatrist, hoping to overload the connection between them enough to break it. Strange let out an animalistic shriek and staggered back, falling over the body of the dead doctor. He laid writhing and moaning on the floor.

The lights in the cavernous room began to fade erratically in and out, crackling in protest as the machine struggled to reach equilibrium once again, unable to cope with the overload of energy. Sparks began to spit from its casing. There was a sudden, audible crack like someone snapping a twig and all the pain disappeared from Batman's head. The connection had broken! The shock of the change left Batman nauseous and disorientated, teetering on the brink of a yawning chasm as the world threatened to turn itself inside out. He managed to ride out the waves of faintness that engulfed him and emerge gasping for breath, but awake and finally in full control of his senses.

But something was wrong. The lights continued to pulse madly, the machine still shuddered and spat sparks and Doctor Strange was screaming, tearing at his face with clawed fingers. Batman stared at the nightmarish scene for a moment, and then he realised what was happening.

'_Jo –' _No, that wouldn't work. "Joker, you can stop now! The connection's been severed!" He shouted. Then, as that was ignored, louder: "Stop! You're killing him!"

Joker was sat straining forwards in his chair, white-knuckled hands gripping it, the veins in his neck and on his forehead standing out as he channelled a lifetime of hatred and madness into the dying psychiatrist. His scarred face was twisted in an ecstasy of rage, his mouth open in a scream of inhuman laughter. As the grotesque sound reached its crescendo, Doctor Strange gave a final cry and all the lights blew, plunging everything into darkness.


	15. Chapter 15

The Dark Knight crouched on the edge of Arkham Asylum's roof, watching the pulsing flashes of blue and red lights as police vehicles and ambulances massed around the entrance below him. A mournful wail of a siren in the distance announced the approach of yet more police cars. All here because of him, because of the anonymous call he'd placed once he'd been able to escape from that charnel house. His prolonged struggles and superior strength had eventually beaten his bindings, as he knew they would.

He stayed watching until he saw Doctor Strange being wheeled out on a gurney and into the back of an ambulance, an oxygen mask fixed over his face. He wasn't dead, but the force of two minds turning on him had shattered his own mind, plummeting him into a coma that he was unlikely to ever awake from. Although this was not the ideal justice Batman would have wanted, there was nothing he could do about it now. He had tried everything in his power to waken the psychiatrist, but it had proved impossible. Another life he'd been unable to save. But at least the inmates of Arkham would be safe from the insane doctor. They would be put under the care of someone who would help them and treat them like the damaged, vulnerable human beings they were and not as expendable test subjects.

Allowing himself to acknowledge his exhaustion, Batman closed his eyes. The light evening breeze felt refreshing on his face and it soothed his aching head as it reached him through the holes in his broken cowl. Beside him stood the Joker, also enjoying the breeze, with his eyes closed and his greasy, straggled hair being blown back from his upturned face.

"I can't hear your thoughts anymore," The escaped inmate spoke up as the first of the ambulances began to pull away, bringing Batman back to the present.

"No, the psychic link went down along with Hugo Strange."

"So, what do we do now?"

Batman looked up at the scarred man at his side. "I take you back to the asylum."

A grin spread across Joker's face as he backed up sharply, his palms held out in a warding off gesture. "Oh no you don't, Batsy. No you don't. I'm never going back there."

"It will be different now. Arkham will be under new management, there'll be new psychiatrists, good ones. You're sick Joker, but you're not terminal. You could be made well again; I saw that potential in you."

"No, no you didn't. And what if you do take me back, Bats? What then? They'll take you in too. You killed Harvey, you tried to kill Gordon… what's that, at least a life sentence? You won't let that happen, will you? Not when you've got a world to save." The clown licked his lips almost nervously, checking over his shoulder to make sure there was still enough roof left for him to manoeuvre on.

Batman shrugged wearily. At that moment a prison cell didn't seem like such a terrible thing. There was be a bed, food, peace; he wouldn't have to worry about anything. Let someone else look after Gotham for a change, he hadn't been doing so well anyway. He stood up. "Come on, I'm taking you back."

"You don't want to do that," Joker smirked, his voice dropping to a menacing purr. He fumbled for a moment with his jumpsuit and came up holding Cavendish's gun, which he levelled calmly at the other man's face. "I've got a proposition for you which I think you'd be wise to listen to. You see, I've had time to do some thinking and I realised, both you and me, what lonely lives we lead. I know you feel it too, that emptiness, like something is missing." Licking his lips, the criminal shuffled closer until he could nestle the muzzle of the gun against the soft flesh beneath Batman's chin.

If it wasn't one thing it was another and, the Dark Knight thought bitterly, he should have seen this coming. He stared icily ahead, refusing to look at the madman holding him at gunpoint. When he spoke, the weapon dug painfully into him. "I know what's missing from my life; you took it from me."

"No," Joker snarled, suddenly angry. "Not Rachel, not her, it's _me_ you're missing. You _need_ me." Viciously, he jammed the gun tighter against the other man's throat, crowding up against him a manner that was both menacing and pleading. "Didn't you feel it when we were sharing one mind? You felt like a whole person at last, didn't you?"

Batman remained silent because he refused to believe that Joker was telling the truth, he couldn't allow it to be true.

"I've told you before – you _complete_ me, and I complete you. So join me, Gotham won't know what's hit her! We'd have her eating out of our hands within days. She'd finally be all yours. Why not do something for yourself for a change? You don't owe the law anything, look how they turned on you after everything you've done for them. They don't understand you. Give in to who you really are Batman, and join me."

Temptations of the devil. Of course it would be so much easier to allow himself to be consumed by darkness, to turn his back on the world, but that was why he couldn't do it. To live in the light, even when all was black, that took courage and was therefore worth fighting for. He wouldn't give in. He would die a hero.

"That's not who I am and you know it, Joker."

"And I thought _I_ was a masochist," the clown chuckled dryly.

Moving very slowly, like someone who has spotted a rare bird and is anxious not to startle it away, Batman raised one hand and put it over the gun at his throat. He lowered his gaze into the blazing eyes that were burning holes into him. "I know why you're doing this," he said softly, at last accepting the bond that had been established between him and Joker. He allowed himself to relive those few dreadful moments of a psyche in turmoil. "You're desperate for a focus, something that will last beyond money and fame and death, and you think you've found that focus in me. Maybe you have, but you'll never be able to appreciate it with the life you're leading now. So join _me_. Save Gotham with me instead of destroying it alone. You're not a bad person, Joker. Let the Arkham doctors help you and you'll see that.

Joker stared incredulously at the other man. After a moment he exclaimed "You really believe all that, don't you?"

"Perhaps."

"You've got it all wrong Bats, I like being this way. I'm an agent of chaos."

A sigh passed the Batman's lips before he could stop it. He felt so tired. "I know."

"And I know you'd never leave the path of the righteous, you're far too boring. But it was worth a try. Well…" Joker pulled back the gun and cocked it before pointing it at the vigilante once again, "It was nice getting to know you…" He seemed to stop himself abruptly, running the tip of his tongue across his upper lip, as if he had been about to let some vital piece of information slip, the true name of the Batman perhaps.

Even though he was convinced that the criminal didn't really know his true name and even if he had learnt it through their telepathy he would make himself forget it because he'd gotten it far too easily, therefore making it no fun, Batman started towards Joker.

Uttering a loud burst of laughter as he backed up, Joker pulled the trigger of the gun he held. Both men froze at the hollow click and then looked down. The gun had fired a blank, it was empty, all of its bullets used up.

The scars on Joker's face stretched in a wide grin. He'd known the cartridge was empty, known even when he'd picked the gun up in the dark. "April fools, Batsy. I'll be seeing you again sometime." Breaking into a wild howl of laughter he took a long, deliberate step back and abruptly disappeared off the edge of the roof.

"No!" Batman cried out as he lunged forwards with an outstretched groping hand, realising in that moment that if the Joker were to die then he would die too. Although as different as the two sides of Two-Face's coin, like those coin faces, neither could exist without the other. They completed each other, even if they would forever be fighting one another. The sun must die to give way to the night, but the night will only come to be banished by the sun. His agonised shout mingled for a moment with the clown's laughter, creating an eerie harmony.

Of course he was too late, his hand closed over thin air. Dreading what he would see, he gripped the edge of the roof and looked down into the asylum courtyard. What he saw made him start in surprise – the courtyard was empty! No one should have been able to survive that fall, but there was no body down below. He sank back on his haunches, thinking.

It was then that his quick eyes discerned movement at the edge of a copse of dark trees that bordered the edge of the asylum grounds. Focusing on it for the split second it was visible he could have sworn it was a flash of orange jumpsuit disappearing into the shelter of the foliage. And maybe it was just his overtired mind, or perhaps he really could hear laughter dying away into the night. He was sure he'd be seeing Joker again soon enough.

He stayed for a while on the roof, just sitting and thinking. Despite his fatigue he felt somehow new and refreshed; despite all the problems weighing down on him he felt at peace. Things finally made sense again. He was positive now that he could wait until Gotham needed the Batman again, which it would, and when that time came he would be welcomed with open arms. He would go and find Gordon and explain. They'd be able to work out a way for the Dark Knight to continue to covertly help the police without him risking his life _or_ his sanity. They'd be able to make things right.

But not now, not tonight, Tonight all Bruce Wayne, the Batman, wanted to do was go home and see how Alfred was doing before dropping into a long and dreamless sleep.

* * *

A/N: Th-th-that's all, bat-fans. Hope you enjoyed it. :)

*Engage shameless self-promotion.* Oh, and don't despair too much, 'cause I've got a sequel to this in the works. *End of shameless self-promotion.*


End file.
